Well, I promised that 63 Up (ITV) would form part of my next blog, so here we go. I also named it as a certainty for my running shortlist before I had seen a minute of it because of what it has been, which is an essential part of what it is now. It had already earned its place on my list, even though this edition did turn out to be a little less impactful than previous ones. It had a certain valedictory air, which may be because Michael Apted’s own advancing age makes him question whether he will be around to do it again in another seven years’ time. Each participant was asked to comment on the original premise of the series – that a person’s character and life path is set at the age of seven – which gave an air of things being wrapped up, at least in the event that there is to be no more. Hopefully this will turn out to be a “just in case” precaution, but I think Apted needs to work out a way of letting it go on without him, because it is too important to let go until the last possible moment. It certainly wouldn’t be the same without Apted’s skill as a film-maker and as an interviewer, but maybe there could be just a small-scale studio get-together every seven years when he’s no longer around.

It also struck me that there seemed to be a lot more questions about the participants’ views of political events this time around – in particular, Apted was keen to ask many of them about their attitudes to Brexit. Given that several of them have moved abroad or have family or business connections overseas, while others see themselves as firmly British, this was a fruitful line of enquiry. It also spoke to questions of identity, which have characterised the series throughout.

Overall, the series has perhaps become a little predictable now. Tony’s story usually comes first, to hook you in, while Neil’s is last, to keep you watching to the end. The first death in the group, that of Lynn, was very well handled at the end of the middle part, while the grave illness of Nick was also saddening, but otherwise it seemed to be business as usual, though with less to report. The series has mirrored my own life throughout (I was eleven when it started) and “less to report” is pretty much where I am now, too – that’s the main condition of retirement. Coming back every seven years has also worked particularly well with people of this vintage, especially as it only became clear that would happen gradually – with the impact of social media, it wouldn’t be the same for people of later generations, because their lives would be too obviously impacted by their fame. That has happened a little bit in the Up series, but not enough to affect its trajectory.

Up is pretty reliable when it comes to the credibility of its participants’ testimony. This may be because it involves “ordinary people” who are not considering their own place in history or attempting to remember more than seven years ago. There have, however, been a number of recent documentaries I would like to mention here, which have relied on the memories of more famous people or have demonstrated how they can be distorted, in one case even deliberately.

Going back a couple of months, one of my very favourite documentaries of this year has to be John Bridcut’s Janet Baker: in her own words (BBC4) a wonderful and poignant portrait of one of this country’s greatest ever singers. Baker retired (suddenly) 30 years ago and is now 85 but comes across as incredibly lucid and eloquent as she looks directly into Bridcut’s camera and recalls her glory days. She is, of course, aided by a tremendous catalogue of recordings, both sound and vision. Her core repertoire, as well as the details of her life (she has been caring for her disabled husband for many years) makes the overall impression very emotional and wistful. Bridcut has a tremendous capacity for filming people simply listening to music which speaks volumes without a word being uttered (he did much the same in his documentary on Herbert von Karajan a few years back). This is a documentary which speaks to me as directly as the Up series – I have most of the Baker recordings featured on my shelves and my years of discovering classical music coincided with Baker at her peak. It is one most definitely for the shortlist.

The five-part Thatcher: A Very British Revolution (BBC2), on the other hand, was a recent history told at a distance but by people with their own place in it to cement. Mind you, as John Nott pointed out at the start, not many of Thatcher’s first cabinet are left. There were three main witnesses, interviewed at length: Norman Tebbit, Bernard Ingham and Michael Heseltine (John Major was strangely absent) and, although they all had interesting stories to tell, they also all had their own spin to apply to them. There were some obvious parallels for today, especially with a Tory leadership campaign going on and Europe still dividing the party. Ingham’s incredulous “who would want to lead a Tory government?” was a highlight. There was also some great archival material, including Norman Tebbit’s rescue from the Brighton bomb which was broadcast live on BBC Breakfast Time and has, for a long time, remained un-repeated at his request. I remember watching it at the time and thinking what a striking piece of television it was – the stricken Tebbit, covered in dust and wearing only barely in-place pyjama bottoms, being slowly lowered from the rubble by many hands – a scene resembling Renaissance depictions of Christ’s descent from the cross. The series contained a number of such resonant sequences but, as a whole, contained very little which we didn’t know or which had not been covered in previous series.

Even further along the scale, Martin Scorsese’s Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story (Netflix) is deliberately fictionalised documentary making, maybe recognising that attempting to present any sort of “truth” about this subject matter was both impossible and probably less fun. Dylan himself is certainly in on the joke and it may well have been his idea. But what the hell, it captures a time and a mood and gives us some fantastic concert footage. It is often said in relation to drama documentaries that they aim to present a “higher truth” when they do not necessarily stick to verifiable facts, and I guess that also applies when what is ostensibly a documentary contains “mockumentary” elements. Whatever, I certainly enjoyed it, but I don’t think it is in the same league as the same director’s No Direction Home (PBS, 2005)

Much more recent history was presented in Olly Lambert’s One Day in Gaza (BBC2) transmitted exactly one year after the events it depicts (except in America, where the usually estimable PBS series Frontline shamefully pulled it just before transmission and has yet to re-schedule it). This is a case where there is plenty of evidential footage but also many different “truths” about what happened. Lambert’s doc was very well constructed, with just the right balance of actuality and context. Some of that actuality was remarkably vivid and the drone footage gave it an epic feel. The slow reveals in the interviews (the mother clutching her dead son’s vest, the activist who had lost a leg) personalised the individual experiences of a chaotic situation. Olly Lambert has made a number of films in and about Gaza and obviously has good contacts and made great choices. As for its value as a piece of history, only time will tell, but for the present it is one of the best windows on the Israel/Palestine situation and a must for my shortlist.

And that shortlist is growing long. It’s been a wonderful year so far. Next time I will update the list for my usual halfway report.